During 1867–1868 and 1868–1870, Vereshchagin traveled in Central Asia (Turkestan). During his journey the artist was an eyewitness to military actions between Russian troops and the Bokhara Khanate. His impressions of what he saw were set down in the series of paintings entitled The Barbarians. The subject of the series was transparent – the destruction of a Russian detachment by warriors of the Bokhara Emir. The painting depicts the main square in Samarkand, Registan (which literally means “the place covered with sand”) in front of the Madrassah (medress, religious school) Shir Dor. The remarkable feature of the Shir Dor Madrassah (1619–1635/1636, Abdul Jabbar, architect) is the heraldic symbol of a tiger tearing to pieces a doe against a background of the solar disk - twice repeated on the tympanum of the portal. Shir Dor literally means “tiger bearing.” In the centre of the painting we see pikes with the impaled heads of Russian soldiers. However, they are almost indistinguishable against the background of the blinding sun, the bright ornamentation, and the colourful clothing of the gapers.

And finally

Under the influence of the military action in Turkestan, which shocked eyewitnesses by its cruelty, Vereshchagin did a series of paintings entitled The Barbarians. The key place in the series in terms of its intellectual freight was the painting The Apotheosis of War. The viewer beholds a dead wasteland baked by the sun with stunted trees. In the distance there is a plundered city. In the centre, a pyramid of human skulls.

Such were the “monuments” which the 14th-15th century conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) left after himself. Originally the artist intended to name the painting The Triumph of Tamerlane, however he preferred to give it a larger scale significance and wrote on the frame The Apotheosis of War, adding “This is dedicated to all great conquerors, past, present and future.”

The large scale slaughtering of other human beings is what human beings excel at. If there is a method of cruelty, torture or execution possible to imagine then someone has used it. The Muslims especially seem fascinated with cruelty, like lowering victims slowly into vats of boiling oil, a favourite of the Turks.

What is most disturbing to me and seems to be an intrinsic part of Muslim culture is the sexual abuse of little boys.

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Muslim Terrorism Count

Mission Overview

Most Western societies are based on Secular Democracy, which itself is based on the concept that the open marketplace of ideas leads to the optimum government. Whilst that model has been very successful, it has defects. The 4 Freedoms address 4 of the principal vulnerabilities, and gives corrections to them.

At the moment, one of the main actors exploiting these defects, is Islam, so this site pays particular attention to that threat.

Islam, operating at the micro and macro levels, is unstoppable by individuals, hence: "It takes a nation to protect the nation". There is not enough time to fight all its attacks, nor to read them nor even to record them. So the members of 4F try to curate a representative subset of these events.

We hope that free nations will wake up to stop the threat, and force the separation of (Islamic) Church and State. This will also allow moderate Muslims to escape from their totalitarian political system.

The 4 Freedoms

These 4 freedoms are designed to close 4 vulnerabilities in Secular Democracy, by making them SP or Self-Protecting (see Hobbes's first law of nature). But Democracy also requires - in addition to the standard divisions of Executive, Legislature & Judiciary - a fourth body, Protector of the Open Society (POS), to monitor all its vulnerabilities (see also Popper). 1. SP Freedom of SpeechAny speech is allowed - except that advocating the end of these freedoms2. SP Freedom of ElectionAny party is allowed - except one advocating the end of these freedoms3. SP Freedom from Voter ImportationImmigration is allowed -except where that changes the political demography (this is electoral fraud)4. SP Freedom from Debt
The Central Bank is allowed to create debt - except where that debt burden can pass across a generation (25 years).

An additional Freedom from Religion is deducible if the law is applied equally to everyone:

Religious and cultural activities are exempt from legal oversight except where they intrude into the public sphere (Res Publica)"